Shoot the Breeze

As the world’s leading manufacturer of small wind generators, Southwest Windpower takes pride in the quality of our products and takes numerous efforts to ensure customer satisfaction. As a manufacturer, Southwest Windpower relies on independent dealers and installers to site and install it’s turbines for customers. Dealers of Southwest Windpower products have attended training classes and therefore are expected to be well versed in the siting of wind turbines along with proficiency in installation. Read more »

Act by year-end: If you’ve been thinking of getting your own small wind or wind-solar hybrid system, this is a great time to act. The tax benefits for purchasing systems are significant – 30% of the entire installed system, less incentives, can be claimed as a tax credit, and there are even more benefits if you own a business.

The K3 Wind and Solar Charger from Kinesis Industries of Scottsdale, Ariz. is a rechargeable Lithium-ion 3.7-volt cell that can collect and store power created by wind, solar or AC power sources. The device is priced just under $100, but certain adapters cost extra, including the one for iPhone and certain iPods, which costs $14.99.

According to Kinesis, one hour in the sun or wind will create enough power to give your mobile phone about 30 minutes of talk time or your MP3 player more than 300 minutes of run time. When fully charged, a K3 can charge a mobile phone about five times and an MP3 device more than 10 times, according to the company. Read more »

Kern County, Calif., known for its large agricultural base, is located in the southern Central Valley. The county is home to more than 661,000 residents and is a significant producer of wind turbine power. Read more »

The size of wind turbine you need depends on your application. Small turbines range in size from 20 watts to 100 kilowatts (kW). Smaller 20- to 500-watt turbines are used in a variety of applications such as charging batteries for recreational vehicles and sailboats. Read more »

There has long been a debate about which source of renewable energy is superior: wind or solar. In recent years however, it has become clear that one source most often does not outperform the other. Instead, there exist seasonal benefits to each source. It has been determined that both wind and solar have compelling benefits within their seasonal range. Read more »

Skystream is designed to be installed on a freestanding or guyed tower ranging from 33 - 70 feet (9 - 21 m) high, mounted on a concrete foundation. Rooftop mounting is generally not recommended for wind turbines because of the turbulence created by the building. Read more »

Small is Beautiful - the benefits of distributed energy generationGreenenergynet.com
The Electricity Market Reform White Paper may have grabbed all of the headlines when it was published on 12th July 2011, but another document published by DECC at the same time also made for interesting reading. The Renewable Energy Roadmap sets out how the UK Government, along with the devolved administrations, hopes to achieve an increase of more than four-fold in the consumption of renewable energy by the end of the decade. It looks at the actions to tackle barriers to the wider rollout of renewables and identifies the key technologies - including wind, biomass and heat pumps - which it believes have the greatest potential to help meet targets. Read more »

In order for a personal wind turbine to capture optimal wind energy it must be able to always face the wind dead on. The yaw, or yaw drive, is a component of a horizontal axis wind turbine that allows the turbine to continually pivot into the wind.

The video below shows our Skystream model turning to adjust to the direction of the wind thanks to the yaw:Read more »